The Convenient Marriage Read online

  ‘Ecod, you’re mad, Pel!’ said Mr Fox. ‘She’s had four girls already!’

  ‘Mad be damned!’ quoth the Viscount. ‘I had the news on the way here. I’ve won.’

  ‘What, she’s never given Danvers an heir at last?’ cried Mr Boulby.

  ‘An heir?’ said the Viscount scornfully. ‘Two of ’em! She’s had twins!’

  After this amazing intelligence no one could doubt that the signs were extremely propitious for the Viscount. In fact, one cautious gentleman removed himself to the quinze room, where a number of gamesters sat round tables in silence, with masks on their faces to conceal any betraying emotion, and rouleaus of guineas in front of them.

  As the night wore on the Viscount’s luck, which had begun by fluctuating in an uncertain fashion, steadied down. He started the evening by twice throwing out three times in succession, a circumstance which induced Mr Fox to remark that the gull-gropers, or money-lenders, who waited in what he called the Jerusalem chamber for him to rise, would find instead a client in his lordship. However, the Viscount soon remedied this set-back by stripping off his coat and putting it on again inside out, a change that answered splendidly, for no sooner was it made than he recklessly pushed three rouleaus into the centre of the table, called a main of five, and nicked it. By midnight his winnings, in the form of rouleaus, bills and several vowels, or notes of hand, fairly littered the stand at his elbow, and Mr Fox, a heavy loser, called for his third bottle.

  There were two tables in the hazard-room, both round, and large enough to accommodate upwards of twenty persons. At the one every player was bound by rule to keep not less than fifty guineas before him, at the other the amount was fixed more moderately at twenty guineas. A small stand stood beside each player with a large rim to hold his glass or his teacup and a wooden bowl for the rouleaus. The room was lit by candles in pendent chandeliers, and so bright was the glare that quite a number of gamesters, the Viscount amongst them, wore leather guards bound round their foreheads to protect their eyes. Others, notably Mr Drelincourt, who was feverishly laying and staking odds at the twenty-guinea table, affected straw hats with very broad brims, which served the double purpose of shading their eyes and preventing their wigs from becoming tumbled. Mr Drelincourt’s hat was adorned with flowers and ribands and was held by several other Macaronis to be a vastly pretty affair. He had put on a frieze greatcoat in place of his own blue creation, and presented an astonishing picture as he sat alternately sipping his tea and casting the dice. However, as it was quite the thing to wear frieze coats and straw hats at the gaming table, not even his severest critics found anything in his appearance worthy of remark.

  For the most part silence broken only by the rattle of the dice and the monotonous drone of the groom-porters’ voices calling the odds brooded over the room, but from time to time snatches of desultory talk broke out. Shortly after one o’clock quite a burst of conversation proceeded from the twenty-guinea table, one of the gamesters having taken it into his head to call the dice in the hope of changing his luck. Someone, while they waited for a fresh bale, had started an interesting topic of scandal and a shout of laughter most unpleasantly assailing the ears of Lord Cheston, a rather nervous gambler, caused him to deliver the dice at the other table with a jerk that upset his luck.

  ‘Five-to-seven, and three-to-two against!’ intoned the groom-porter dispassionately.

  The laying and staking of bets shut out the noise of the other table, but as silence fell again and Lord Cheston picked up the box, Mr Drelincourt’s voice floated over to the fifty-guinea table with disastrous clarity.

  ‘Oh, my lord, I protest; for my part I would lay you odds rather on my Lord Lethbridge’s success with my cousin’s stammering bride!’ said Mr Drelincourt with a giggle.

  The Viscount, already somewhat flushed with wine, was in the act of raising his glass to his lips when this unfortunate remark was wafted to his ears. His cerulean blue eyes, slightly clouded but remarkably intelligent still, flamed with the light of murder, and with a spluttered growl of ‘Hell and damnation!’ he lunged up out of his chair before anyone could stop him.

  Sir Roland Pommeroy made a grab at his arm. ‘Pel, I say, Pel! Steady!’

  ‘Lord, he’s three parts drunk!’ said Mr Boulby. ‘Here’s a pretty scandal! Pelham, for God’s sake think what you’re doing!’

  But the Viscount, having shaken Pommeroy off, was already striding purposefully over to the other table, and seemed to have not the least doubt of what he was doing. Mr Drelincourt, looking round, startled to see who was bearing down upon him, let his jaw drop in ludicrous dismay, and received the contents of his lordship’s glass full in his face. ‘You damned little rat, take that!’ roared the Viscount.

  There was a moment’s shocked silence, while Mr Drelincourt sat with the wine dripping off the end of his nose, and staring at the incensed Viscount as one bemused.

  Mr Fox, coming over from the other table, grasped Lord Winwood by the elbow, and addressed Mr Drelincourt with severity. ‘You’d best apologize, Crosby,’ he said. ‘Pelham, do recollect! This won’t do, really it won’t!’

  ‘Recollect?’ said the Viscount fiercely. ‘You heard what he said, Charles! D’you think I’ll sit by and let a foul-mouthed –’

  ‘My lord!’ interrupted Mr Drelincourt, rising and dabbing at his face with a rather unsteady hand. ‘I – I apprehend the cause of your annoyance. I assure your lordship you have me wrong! If I said anything that – that seemed –’

  Mr Fox whispered urgently: ‘Let it alone now, Pel! You can’t fight over your sister’s name without starting a scandal.’

  ‘Be damned to you, Charles!’ said the Viscount. ‘I’ll manage it my way. I don’t like the fellow’s hat!’

  Mr Drelincourt fell back a pace; someone gave a snort of laughter, and Sir Roland said wisely: ‘That’s reasonable enough. You don’t like his hat. That’s devilish neat, ’pon my soul it is! Now you come to mention it, ecod, I don’t like it either!’

  ‘No, I don’t like it!’ declared the Viscount, rolling a fiery eye at the offending structure. ‘Pink roses, egad, above that complexion! Damme, it offends me, so it does!’

  Mr Drelincourt’s bosom swelled. ‘Sirs, I take you all to witness that his lordship is in his cups!’

  ‘Hanging back, are you?’ said the Viscount, thrusting Mr Fox aside. ‘Well, you won’t wear that hat again!’ With which he plucked the straw confection from Mr Drelincourt’s head and casting it on the floor ground his heel in it.

  Mr Drelincourt, who had borne with tolerable composure the insult of a glass of wine thrown in his face, gave a shriek of rage, and clapped his hands to his head. ‘My wig! My hat! My God, it passes all bounds! You’ll meet me for this, my lord! I say you shall meet me for this!’

  ‘Be sure I will!’ promised the Viscount, rocking on the balls of his feet, his hands in his pockets. ‘When you like, where you like, swords or pistols!’

  Mr Drelincourt, pale and shaking with fury, besought his lordship to name his friends. The Viscount cocked an eyebrow at Sir Roland Pommeroy. ‘Pom? Cheston?’

  The two gentlemen indicated expressed their willingness to serve him.

  Mr Drelincourt informed them that his seconds would wait upon them in the morning, and with a somewhat jerky bow withdrew from the room. The Viscount, his rage at the insult to Horatia slightly assuaged by the satisfactory outcome of the disturbance, returned to his table and continued there in the highest fettle until eight in the morning.

  Somewhere about noon, when he was still in bed and asleep, Sir Roland Pommeroy visited his lodging in Pall Mall and, disregarding the valet’s expostulations, pushed his way into my lord’s room and rudely awakened him. The Viscount sat up, yawning, rolled a blear-eye upon his friend, and demanded to know what the devil was amiss.

  ‘Nothing’s amiss,’ replied Sir Roland, seating himself on the edge of the bed. ‘